Arcturus - The Curse and Loss of Divinity

[LunaireticOmega]

You should be able to extract the .pak files with this http://qluster.net/software/grfextractor/

I haven't gotten around to playing this yet, but I may be able to help with crash fixes once I get to a point where I can reproduce them.

Unfortunately this program isn't working in unpacking these .PAK files, but I appreciate the file. It could come in handy later.

There's only a handful of crashes, the main issues are errors that, although they take you out of the game, it still lets you play it once you press "ok" to acknowledge the error itself. 

[peco]

Okay. Try this one then https://mega.nz/#!r9MHxaAJ!JX6FY2y6o0rUf1vpILEQgg5OMwfI_CeKHCU6iGMv6jM

You can use it from command prompt like so: "grfio.exe data.pak ./data". I made it a long time ago, but I verified just now that it will extract the Arcturus format just fine.

Regarding the message box spam, if the errors are recoverable we can just patch out the message box function.

[LunaireticOmega]

Okay. Try this one then https://mega.nz/#!r9MHxaAJ!JX6FY2y6o0rUf1vpILEQgg5OMwfI_CeKHCU6iGMv6jM

You can use it from command prompt like so: "grfio.exe data.pak ./data". I made it a long time ago, but I verified just now that it will extract the Arcturus format just fine.

Regarding the message box spam, if the errors are recoverable we can just patch out the message box function.

Thank you for this.

I think most of the errors are related to the translation itself, and the game trying to call upon assets and actors, but is unable to find them due to potential misnames. Probably the worst offender is one enemy first encountered in the second act of the game who, if attacked, tries to play its "hurt" sound, but the game can't find it and it crashes instantly. The other errors are minor, but still annoying since it can take tens of minutes out of your time to get through one scene.

[ArcturusFan]

Yeah, that monster is quite frustrating since its cry instantly results in an hard crash and it has a few recolored versions, meaning you will likely encounter it for most of the game's second half. The error boxes during events are really annoying but overall less impacting, even if they are still a chore and almost completely ruin one of the game's most impacting event near the end.

I hope part of those issues will be fixed in the future in order to make more people give a try to Arcturus, it definitely deserves it. I also hope Helly is fine since, as Lunairetic mentioned, it's been a while since his last post here.

[LunaireticOmega]

Using the tools, I managed to extract a cutscene in Act 2 of the game to see if I can fix some of the actor errors myself.

What's perplexing me is that I can replace the cutscene file with the original Japanese one, and it works fine, but when I try to modify some of the Japanese dialogue by translating it to English, encrsa finds errors in the file when it tries to repack it into an .rsa file.

I'm not sure what's causing it, because all the text is the same, save for the dialogue. :C

[peco]

This command should disable the error nag function (untested):

cp ArcExe.exe ArcExe.bak && (printf  '\xc3' | dd of=ArcExe.exe bs=1 seek=211633 count=1 conv=notrunc)

For the monster that is crashing the game I'm guessing it says the name of the sound file it is expecting to find? It should give the file name for all missing resources. If so you can just put a placeholder in the data/wav folder.

[LunaireticOmega]

This command should disable the error nag function (untested):

cp ArcExe.exe ArcExe.bak && (printf  '\xc3' | dd of=ArcExe.exe bs=1 seek=211633 count=1 conv=notrunc)

For the monster that is crashing the game I'm guessing it says the name of the sound file it is expecting to find? It should give the file name for all missing resources. If so you can just put a placeholder in the data/wav folder.

Is that a shortcut command I add in the properties, or a command line input?

Also, the error I get for attacking the monster isn't a specific file, but instead it tells me "direct sound input buffer failed" or something to that effect.

[peco]

You need to run it from the command line. It will patch the executable with the required change.

[LunaireticOmega]

You need to run it from the command line. It will patch the executable with the required change.

Hmm, didn't seem to work. It says the "cp" command isn't valid, so I checked for a solution and I installed Cygwin, but that didn't change much.

Edit: followed a cygwin tutorial and modified the system variables to include the cygwin commands, then was able to patch the executable with the command you gave me. I tested it on a part that errored, and nothing popped up. Thank you so much!

[peco]

My bad actually. 'copy' would be the appropriate substitute for Windows. Glad you got it to work.

[ikarus19]

has anyone had issues installing the game itself? everything seemed to go fine but when I go to start the game from the main menu



not sure if it's an issue with fonts or if it doesn't work on windows 10 but I'm kind of at a loss here

edit: ended up getting it to work after a reinstall

does anyone happen to know where i could find a good guide on how to use the catalysts?

[LunaireticOmega]

does anyone happen to know where i could find a good guide on how to use the catalysts?

There isn't really a good guide as far as I can tell. The in-game books that provide the proper catalyst requirements and placements are still in Japanese, but the elemental characters can be visually matched when you select them.

You could try this translated website though.

[ikarus19]

There isn't really a good guide as far as I can tell. The in-game books that provide the proper catalyst requirements and placements are still in Japanese, but the elemental characters can be visually matched when you select them.

You could try this translated website though.

thank you. I managed to find another site as well and got it working with some trial and error

on another note, i'm having some trouble getting the game to work in windowed mode with D3DWindower. I followed the instructions but it just boots as normal in fullscreen. Is there a specific set of settings I need to use?

it wouldn't be a big deal to me otherwise but I'm using alcohol 120% and I realized that I'll probably need to have it open to swap to disc 2 at some point in the story

[ikarus19]

man i'm pretty sure i got filtered hard on  the second set of guardians. i'm at lv 40 and i didn't expect to have to fight 4 lv 60 enemies in a row. the best i can do is fire pillar but i end up running out of kronheims.

can i get out of this with grinding or am I stuck?

[LunaireticOmega]

man i'm pretty sure i got filtered hard on  the second set of guardians. i'm at lv 40 and i didn't expect to have to fight 4 lv 60 enemies in a row. the best i can do is fire pillar but i end up running out of kronheims.

can i get out of this with grinding or am I stuck?

Sorry about missing your previous message. Arcturus is extremely finicky when it comes to window resizing, so I'm not sure how to fix it.

Also, yeah around the half-way point of the game comes a huge spike in difficulty, and the fact that they immediately toss you into a fight with 4 guardians after the previous fight is brutal. I remember just grinding my butt off until I did decent damage for my first playthrough. For the second playthrough, however, I found that throwing items deal fixed damage, and any Staurolite either does 300 or 450 damage. If you don't have those, you might have to use other throw-able items, or if you're super desperate, stall them out with poison. Not to spoil anything, but after the 4 guardians, you'll be stuck in a dungeon for a bit, and there's even harder fights in there.

It's important to point out that every single enemy in the game, including bosses AND the final boss, can be afflicted with status effects. Bosses are immune to confusion though, but petrification and poison work on them.

[ikarus19]

finally managed to beat the game. got a bit cocky and was unprepared at first so i ended up having to do a lot of grinding. anyways, big thanks to helly for translating this rare game for a wider audience to enjoy it. arcturus is definitely rough in some places but it's also very unique and has great takes on exploration, battles and sound design.

[LunaireticOmega]

finally managed to beat the game. got a bit cocky and was unprepared at first so i ended up having to do a lot of grinding. anyways, big thanks to helly for translating this rare game for a wider audience to enjoy it. arcturus is definitely rough in some places but it's also very unique and has great takes on exploration, battles and sound design.

Yeah, I loved it for what it is, although it's easy to recognize the heavily rushed parts, and the rough-around-the-edges gameplay. Congratulations on finishing the game!

[Yukira]

Can someone reupload the newest patch file ? I couldnt download the original link, it was so slow ... 

Edit: managed to get it but still couldnt launch the game, configure gave me blank field.
Im using CD version btw, on win10 64bit

[LuxEtUmbra]

Can someone reupload the newest patch file ? I couldnt download the original link, it was so slow ... 

Edit: managed to get it but still couldnt launch the game, configure gave me blank field.
Im using CD version btw, on win10 64bit

Try running it with administrative permission.
It stores the config on Windows registry. On Windows 7 64 bits it's on "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\ProjectArcturus\Arcturus\Video Setup".
Keys DeviceName contains the video name, GuidDevice the identifier of it, GuidDriver the driver identifier.

[LunaireticOmega]

When I upgraded to Windows 10 64-bit, Arcturus is now performing quite horribly unlike when I played it on Windows 7 64-bit. Battles drop the FPS to a snail's pace, menus slow down, opening and closing other menus make the game slower and slower as if there was some kind of memory leak or the game was stacking menus.

It's very difficult to describe it. I tried everything including compatibility options, administrator approval, and nothing worked. What's worse is that on Windows 10, the game retains the title bar of the window at the top, which not only looks really awkward and tacky, it also cuts off the top of the game itself, and overlapping elements like the compass.

Does anyone know how to solve this?